Ticketing Your Way to Lower Event Marketing Costs
If you want to lower your event marketing costs, you need to start collecting customer information immediately!
A HUGE Event Marketing Asset
Customer contact information (at a minimum name and email) is one of your greatest event marketing assets. If you have a recurring event, your customer data becomes even more important. It’s far less expensive to market your event to an established customer database.
Failure to Leverage Previous Customer Data
Oddly enough, far too many event organizers fail to collect customer information. Even worst - event organizers and promoters who fail to leverage their existing customer database. Are you making those same costly mistakes?
The easiest way to collect customer information is by selling you event tickets online. There are numerous ticket service providers that make online ticketing easy. When people purchase tickets online, they fill out their contact information. That information becomes massive marketing asset for your event. Think about it this way – “The person most likely to attend your event in the future is the person who just bought a ticket to your event.” Focus on the Lifetime Value of your event attendees!
Super Important Event Marketing Tip!
Regardless of the ticketing service you utilize - carefully read through their terms of service BEFORE signing a contract! It’s imperative that you own and have complete access to your customer database. Some ticketing companies own all the rights to your customer data . . . Not good! Regardless of how feature laden a ticketing service might be, it isn’t worth giving up ownership of your event customer data. The other problem with a ticketing company owning your customer data is that they can relentlessly market to YOUR list. That doesn't go over well.
“What if I don’t do online ticketing?”
You can still collect customer information even if you don’t use an online ticket service for your event. Here’s a suggestion if you have a physical ticket . . . Setup a web site specifically for attendees. Print the attendee web site address on the physical ticket with a strong call to action, e.g. “Make sure you visit XYZevent.com and sign-up for special event announcements.” You must have a strong call to action in order to get your attendees to sign up. Most important, after you collect event attendee information - focus on delivering relevant and valuable information about your event.
Even if you event is free, I recommend trying to collect attendee information online. This can be accomplished with online pre-event registration for free events.
Be Upfront with Your Customers
If you’re collecting customer information for marketing purposes, make sure you let people know how their information is going to be used. Customers should have the option to opt-out of from your marketing. Additionally, make sure you have robust privacy policy in place.
It’s imperative that you own and have access to your customer data. The usefulness goes well beyond trying to sell someone another event ticket. Your customer data allows you to establish a relationship with your event attendees and collect event feedback. Make sure you aren’t squandering the massive opportunity of your customer data.
Super Important Event Marketing Tip!
Regardless of the ticketing service you utilize - carefully read through their terms of service BEFORE signing a contract! It’s imperative that you own and have complete access to your customer database. Some ticketing companies own all the rights to your customer data . . . Not good! Regardless of how feature laden a ticketing service might be, it isn’t worth giving up ownership of your event customer data. The other problem with a ticketing company owning your customer data is that they can relentlessly market to YOUR list. That doesn't go over well.
“What if I don’t do online ticketing?”
You can still collect customer information even if you don’t use an online ticket service for your event. Here’s a suggestion if you have a physical ticket . . . Setup a web site specifically for attendees. Print the attendee web site address on the physical ticket with a strong call to action, e.g. “Make sure you visit XYZevent.com and sign-up for special event announcements.” You must have a strong call to action in order to get your attendees to sign up. Most important, after you collect event attendee information - focus on delivering relevant and valuable information about your event.
Even if you event is free, I recommend trying to collect attendee information online. This can be accomplished with online pre-event registration for free events.
Be Upfront with Your Customers
If you’re collecting customer information for marketing purposes, make sure you let people know how their information is going to be used. Customers should have the option to opt-out of from your marketing. Additionally, make sure you have robust privacy policy in place.
It’s imperative that you own and have access to your customer data. The usefulness goes well beyond trying to sell someone another event ticket. Your customer data allows you to establish a relationship with your event attendees and collect event feedback. Make sure you aren’t squandering the massive opportunity of your customer data.
Want to get more great info? Check out the articles below:
- Event Marketing: Start Building Your List Early
- Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
- Keeping Your Event List Engaged
- Don't Neglect Your Email List
- Event Marketing: Multiple Ways to Engage Your List
- Simple Customer List Building Suggestions
- Start Building Your List Early
- Late Event Promotion - Big List Growth
- Building Your List Above the Fold
- Are You Opting-In Above the Fold?
- Form Placement and Growing Your List
- Turn Your Event Into an Experience
- The Event Promotion System
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